


Settling

by the_dala



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, OT3, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:40:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dala/pseuds/the_dala
Summary: 'The Turners were up to something.'
Relationships: Elizabeth Swann/Will Turner, James Norrington/Elizabeth Swann/Will Turner
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	Settling

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published August 29th, 2005. Note: there is a sex scene in which one party is mostly asleep, with pre-established consent.

It was said that the Turners were well-matched in every way save financially, but this was not so. Within a month of the wedding, they were engaged in a full-scale battle. The nature of this marital conflict greatly amused the neighbors once they discovered, from the shouts ringing through open windows, that it was not over money, but sleep.

Elizabeth was a night owl. As far as she could tell it was due mainly to her childhood reading habit; fascinated by tales of romantic highwaymen and fierce pirates, she had been obliged to read them by night out of fear they would be confiscated if found by a nurse or governess. When she came to Jamaica at the age of twelve, she hid these books amongst her things, but she also became enamored with nighttime for its own pleasures. With the sunset came merciful relief from the heat, and if she stood at her balcony looking out past the homes and businesses of Port Royal, the insect sounds of the Caribbean night reminded her that she was living in an untamed paradise, no matter how civilized her own existence might remain. This thought gave her a thrill of fear and excitement, and so she liked to stay up and listen.

Will, on the other hand, had long been in the habit of rising before dawn. His master swore by the benefits of an early start to the day, and any inclination toward sleeping in of a morning was quickly suppressed once he began his apprenticeship to Mr. Brown. Even as a child in England, he had usually been put to bed early in the hopes that he might sleep through the drunken clamor of the sailors returning to the boarding house after an evening spent in the nearby taverns. He had subsequently learned to sleep though nearly anything. Once, when he was nine, his father had unexpectedly returned late at night and made a half-hearted attempt to rouse him for a greeting, but Will had slumbered on. In the morning he had awoken to the sound of his parents’ voices harmonizing over breakfast. It being the last time he ever saw Bill Turner, the memory was one he cherished greatly.

At first the energy of youth and the novelty of convivial bliss was enough to sustain them. Elizabeth became adept at keeping Will up late into the night, and he did not complain when she woke him after he’d drifted off, coaxing him into compliance with insistent kisses and slender fingers ranging all over his body. Scant hours later he would pull her into his arms for a last embrace before leaving for the day, and at least twice a week he would return early to rouse her from her customary afternoon nap for a bit of dessert before supper.

However, it was not long before insufficient rest began to take a toll on both parties. Elizabeth’s friends snubbed her for falling asleep at tea or cancelling engagements to prevent such social blunders. Her father noticed her fatigue and, after he got over the disappointment of learning that he was not yet to be a grandfather, pestered her with doctors. Will’s work did not suffer in terms of quality because he was something of a perfectionist, but it took him longer to achieve the same level of success on each piece. He was forced to take on fewer commissions, knowing that he would not have the time to complete them.

Each was cross and short-tempered with the other, and the considerable need for intimacy was slowly being overtaken by the need for peace and rest. Finally Will lost his temper one night when Elizabeth, having feigned sleep when he’d pressed against her that morning, was licking a concentric spiral down his belly. He rolled out of bed, accidently tugging Elizabeth’s hair and ignoring her indignant yelp, and went off to sleep in the parlor. To his surprise, he was struck by a bout of insomnia once he was alone. But when he tried to return to the master bedroom, he found the door locked and his wife moved by neither apology nor entreaty.

Over the next several days, they studiously avoided one another, taking their meals separately and communicating through the servants whenever it was necessary. The frosty silence provided an opportunity to catch up on lost sleep, and as dark circles beneath eyes disappeared, so did resentment and confusion.

On the morning of the fourth day, Elizabeth sought her husband out at the forge. She explained how she was exhausted and overwhelmed, and Will assured her that he felt the same. After extensive negotiations, they reached a series of agreements. Will needed to get to bed early, but if Elizabeth could not close her eyes, he slept so deeply that he would not be disturbed by the bedside lantern. He would be amenable to the occasional midnight tumble, provided she woke him in enough time that he would be able to get a few more hours’ rest afterward. If, on those mornings after she’d let him sleep, he were to rise with a strong need for her, she would likewise open her arms to him as long as he was gentle about waking her and did not interrupt her nap when he got home later in the day. Appropriately enough, they celebrated this reconciliation by barring the doors and sinking to the hard stone floor.

So it was that, four months after their marriage, Elizabeth was sitting up in bed, a French naval adventure in her lap. Will slept face down beside her, his arm flung over her knees. From time to time she would run her hand over his brown curls or nudge him in the ribs when he snored. It would have been easier on her eyesight to read some place in the house where she could have more light, but she much preferred being near him. The deep, even rhythm of his breathing was beginning to make her eyelids droop. One more chapter, she decided, and then she would retire for the night.

As she turned a page, Will turned over, mumbling something unintelligible. Elizabeth absently stroked his hair back from his brow. He groaned faintly.

She looked down at his still face with a little frown. He had nightmares sometimes, peopled by undead pirates or some ghoul of his own imagining, but he hadn’t sounded particularly distressed.

Shifting his head on the pillow, Will moaned again, lower and louder. His legs flexed beneath the sheets and his hand splayed over his own chest, fingers twitching.

Elizabeth set her book aside, her lips set in a smirk. Well, no need to coax him awake tonight. Sliding down in the bed, she pushed up his nightshirt and wrapped her hand around his cock.

A sharp intake of breath, a restless roll of his hips – “ _Ohhhh_...”

“Yes, love,” Elizabeth murmured, stroking him to full hardness. One of Will’s hands tightened at her waist, the other fisting in the rumpled sheet. She put her lips and teeth to a raised nipple.

“Please,” he groaned, pushing up into her touch, “oh, please – harder, sir–”

Elizabeth stopped dead, raising her head to stare at him. His face crinkled with distress and he writhed beneath her. Automatically her fingers rippled on his shaft, and his bereft expression eased. His eyes remained firmly shut.

She had the feeling that she should be incensed at his dreaming of someone else, not least that it was a male, nor that it was someone he would call ‘sir.’ Trying to think of the last man she’d heard him address as ‘sir,’ only her father came to mind.

Guts grumbling at that suggestion, she kissed his throat and whispered, “Tell me who I am, Will.”

“You – you are – _wonderful_ ,” he said, voice breaking on the last word as she rubbed the pad of her thumb over his slit.

Elizabeth sighed, now overcome with curiosity, and nibbled at his earlobe. “My name, darling – say my name.” She tried to affect a masculine growl, which made Will whimper and curl his toes against her foot.

His breath beginning to grow short, Will panted, “James – _James_ –”

In her surprise, Elizabeth jerked at him with rather more force and he cried out sharply. “James? James Norrington? _Commodore_ James Norrington?”

“God yes – Commodore – oh, don’t stop!”

She nipped at the straining cords of his neck, sliding her hand faster along his cock. “The Commodore in your dreams, is it?”

Will threw his head back on the pillow and shouted the man’s name, spilling himself into her palm. Elizabeth propped herself up on an elbow, wiping her hand on a flannel hung by the bed. Despite the circumstances, she could not help but imitate the blissful smile on Will’s sleeping face.

He turned, nuzzling her cheek, and murmured, “Don’t tell my wife.” In thirty seconds he was snoring again.

Elizabeth disliked being kept in the dark about anything. For a long time she lay still beside Will, her indignation gradually mounting. He had never once shown any sign of inclination toward wanton buggery – never responded to Jack Sparrow’s dancing eyes, never looked furtively at a pretty boy passing them on the street, never shown any interest in the borrowed breeches she kept hidden except to get them off her. And Norrington, of all people! The man had always kept an eye out for Will’s welfare as a boy, much like her father; he’d even consented to teaching Will the sword, though he had refused Elizabeth’s own request.

But they had never really been friends, never moved in the same circles as she and Norrington had. She could scarcely recall an instance in the past few years when they had exchanged any conversation beyond pleasant banalities, aside from the morning of Jack's erstwhile execution. Since she and Will had become engaged, he had even gone out of his way to avoid the commodore.

Her thoughts came to a sudden stop. She stared down at her husband’s slumbering face. It struck her that he had behaved in the exact same way toward her once they had reached a certain age. He had stopped calling on her, hidden when she sought him out, and remained stiff and unresponsive whenever she did manage to corner him.

She took Will’s hand, resting casually on her breast, and traced the scar on his palm. Imagined the familiar callused fingers unwinding a starched white stock, combing over cropped dark hair, clutching broad shoulders. He would kiss the commodore slowly at first, afraid of being denied, then with growing fervor when his passion was met and matched (for no man no matter how honorable, she was certain, could resist a blacksmith with an idea in his head). Their bodies would press together, so alike yet so utterly different, aligned at mouths and chests and hips, heat glowing from their skin.

And then they would break the kiss, turn their heads as one – Will taken over by his constant, implacable affection, James wearing the sweet smile she had always tried not to see – and hold out their arms to her...

Will squirmed under her tight grip, his sleepy, irritated grunt breaking into her reverie. She released him, rolling onto her back to gaze at the ceiling, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. Quietly, hoping to avoid disturbing him further, she pulled open the drawer on the vanity next to the bed and lifted its false bottom.

James sat in a worn armchair in his study, papers neglected on his desk, cat dozing at his feet. He held a small velvet pouch on his lap, and for the fifth time in a quarter of an hour, he loosened its strings and drew out the ring within.

It sparkled and winked in the lantern light, coy as a maiden in a tale. He held it up, turning it this way and that. Surely it had not held so many shadows when he’d picked it up in the shop. And it could not really weigh as much as it seemed to; after only a moment, his hand felt so heavy he was forced to lower it with a sigh.

The small diamond was nothing like the bright, perfect garnet that had come before it, and he had not agonized over the choice for weeks. But then, Miss Tilley was hardly Elizabeth Swann.

 _Turner_ , he reminded himself forcefully. As if he could truly forget, with the changes wrought in both of them evident for all to see.

Now and then, when he had been courting her, he had looked into Elizabeth’s eyes and sensed a great apprehension about the future to which she was bound, and an unhappiness so deep it made him nervous. While she would never lose the streak of independence and contrariness that had so intrigued him, she far was less restive these days, content that she had tweaked the rules according to her own needs and desires.

For his part, Will might as well have been a different person entirely from the boy who had labored over a beautiful sword in secret, never demanding the credit he was so rightfully due, never imagining that folk might whisper and James might guess at what he’d hidden. Now he had grown fully into himself, in a process that had begun with the Sparrow business and hastened with marriage to his childhood sweetheart. He was a man who knew his own worth.

It could have been a disaster. In his darker moments, James had wished it would be. But both of them had settled into marriage with an ease that surprised the whole town. James would have preferred to be surprised along with them. He thought he might be much happier if, after all was said and done, he didn’t believe he had done the right thing in releasing Elizabeth from her obligation, and some part of him wasn’t perversely warmed to witness the degree to which they loved one another.

There was always room for bitterness, of course. He only hoped he was strong enough that his new prospective bride might not suffer the effects of it.

Throughout his apprenticeship, Will had enjoyed a good business relationship with the two goldsmiths of Port Royal. He knew the source of the garnet ring Elizabeth had taken to wearing and that was precisely why he chose not to comment on it. However, it was rather difficult to ignore when she dropped it into the gravy at supper.

“Oh!” Elizabeth exclaimed, hand to her mouth. “How clumsy of me!”

“Don’t worry,” said Will as he plucked the ring from the china boat. He looked straight down at his plate as he wiped it off with his napkin. “It does not appear to have suffered any harm.”

She took it from him gratefully, fingertips lingering on his forearm as she lifted it to the rays of the setting sun. “I’m glad for that – isn’t it a lovely gem?”

“Lovely,” he agreed, jaw clenched, stomach churning with a right mess of emotions conjured up by the blood-colored stone. If only she had given it back as custom dictated, not that its procurer would have asked; if only she would let it be –

But this was Elizabeth, as he well knew, and so she looked him squarely in the eye and said, “James Norrington gave it to me, ages ago.”

She never used his first name – neither of them did – and though Will could not have said how, she _knew_.

For a moment he let the silence stretch out, broken only by the solemn ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. Excuses and distractions and refutations flitted through his head, but in the end he rejected every one. He couldn’t lie to her, and he didn’t want to know what she might do if he tried.

“Elizabeth –” he said in a hoarse voice, then paused, cheeks reddening. Her eyebrows rose in expectation. “Elizabeth, I...”

She cut a green bean into three neat pieces. “Have been harboring amorous feelings for the selfsame man, yes, I know.”

Will sat back in his chair, gaze fixed on the remains of his supper. He was surprised to find relief quick on the heels of shock – relief at having this out in the open at last, he supposed, whatever the consequences. “How? How did you know, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I don’t mind in the least,” said Elizabeth briskly, the sound of the knife scraping across the plate the only sign of her agitation. “You were talking in your sleep the night before last.”

“Oh.”

When that proved his only response and he still wouldn’t raise his eyes from the table, she slammed her clenched fist down. “For God’s sake, Will, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought –” Well, what would any man think his wife might say to the idea of her husband’s thoughts straying to another man, much less her former suitor? Really, he didn’t see why she should be so angry over that particular point. “I was afraid you would be hurt. There was no harm done by – by mere fantasies, so I didn’t see why screeching over it would do either of us any good.”

Wood creaked as she shifted forward in her chair. “Look at me,” she said with soft insistence. Her hand curved over his, their wedding bands clinking. “Do I look as though I am going to screech?”

He had to admit that she didn’t. There was a hint of hurt on her face, but mostly it was earnest and understanding, which baffled him in a way Elizabeth had not baffled him in a long time.

“Please don’t take this as a complaint,” he said, turning his palm over to return her grasp, “but...whyever not?”

“Well,” said Elizabeth slowly, letting go his hand as she stood and reseated herself in his lap. Will held onto her waist to steady her and she looped her arms around his neck, gazing down at him with a slyness he most definitely recognized. “On account of something I wish to discuss...”

Much later, after the table had been cleared, the servants dismissed and wife properly seen to, Will buried his nose in her hair and murmured, “There’s one thing that gives me pause.”

“Hmmm? What’s that?” she asked, lazily running her short nails up and down his spine.

“Just that he’s all set to propose to Ruth Tilley.”

Elizabeth’s wandering hand went perfectly still, then slapped his shoulder as she burst out laughing. “Oh, Will, don’t be ridiculous! I mean I know she’s been after him for ages – or social-climbing mother has, rather – but honestly...you do remember Ruth as the girl who tried to eat from the bowl of wax fruit at our reception, do you not?”

Will could hardly blame her for such a reaction. Miss Tilley was a nice enough girl, from what he understood, but she was hardly the commodore’s type. His source had been no less stunned. “He bought another ring, Elizabeth. I heard it directly from Henry Watson.”

“But that’s...” She said up in bed, her brows knit in consternation. “What could he be thinking? She’ll make him a miserable wife!”

He reached up to smooth the frown from her lips. “Perhaps he feels a better prospect is unlikely to present itself,” he said gently, pulling her back down.

Elizabeth huffed in his arms. He waited, a bit smug at having thought of something his clever wife had not.

At last she lifted her head from his chest, her eyes free of the mirth with which she had earlier regarded the idea of seducing the commodore. “It occurs to me now that our plan may be not be sufficient for James’ needs.”

“You’re contemplating something a bit more...” He kissed the bridge of her nose and concluded, “...permanent?”

“I don’t see any other way,” she said pensively, craning her neck to allow his mouth access. “We cannot allow bloody Ruth Tilley to have him – nor any other pea-brained doxy, for that matter.”

Will chuckled, rubbing at the thatch of hair between her legs until she caught her breath and lifted her knee. “I do love you when you’re possessive, my dear.”

“You love me when I am anything, darling,” Elizabeth replied, gasping into his mouth as his fingers parted her folds. He thought of James in their bed, undoing her composure like this, and he hoped the two of them together would look as sweet as she felt and tasted and trembled.  


The Turners were up to something.

James was suspicious from the first, from the moment Elizabeth came to his office and asked him to supper. He grew ever more wary when she shrugged off his invented excuses, asking him for the next night if he could not make it tonight, or the night after that, or the week after that, until at last James could think of nothing else he may have to do for the next month. Deciding that it would be best to simply get the encounter over with, he proposed rescheduling an imaginary appointment with a colonel that evening. Elizabeth beamed at his grudging acquiescence, and his heart throbbed painfully in his chest.

Over pudding, after an interminable meal fraught with long silences peppered by awkward small talk, his nerve reasserted itself and he called them out.

“All right,” he announced, laying his spoon down. Elizabeth and Will glanced up from their plates, the centerpiece candelabra illuminating twin expressions of curiosity. James was not fooled. “What has Sparrow done this time?”

Elizabeth blinked, taken aback – and either she was a better actress than James had thought, or her surprise was genuine. “Pardon?”

“Jack Sparrow,” he said with a sigh, ignoring a sudden nudge of uncertainty. “I can think of no reason why you would approach me other than to ask some favor for your renegade friend.”

“You think we asked you here because of Jack?” Will exchanged a dubious glance with his wife. He did not appear to be bluffing either, and James began to feel a hollow sinking sensation in his stomach.

He pushed his plate away, folding his hands on the tabletop. “Yes. I believe you want something of me, Mr. Turner – Mrs. Turner – and I would much prefer to have it said than to dance around it for another hour.”

“We don’t want anything of you, James,” Elizabeth began, then bit her lip and continued quickly, “Well, I mean we do, but it’s nothing to do with Jack.”

Will snorted, looking insulted that James had even suggested such a thing. “Honestly, we haven’t even heard from him in weeks.”

Elizabeth cleared her throat and stood, gesturing for James to do the same. Her face was set in the same sort of determination he’d witnessed aboard the _Dauntless_ , when she had bargained her hand for Will’s life. He did not appreciate being reminded of the incident, but he nonetheless followed her when she said, “Shall we retire to the parlor, gentlemen? I would...feel more comfortable discussing our business in there.”

It was a small, cozy room next to the stairs in which James had never been received. He stood in front of a sofa, hesitating to sit down because neither of them had – Will had gone over to pull the shutters closed and Elizabeth was hovering near him, shooting glances at James as she whispered in his ear. He caught only snatches of their hushed conversation

“Now or never –”

“Under the circumstances I hardly think...”

“...cowardly sod...”

“...demanding wench...”

Finally Elizabeth crossed her arms over her bosom and hissed, “The plan, William, the _plan_!”

“What plan?” James cried, exasperated. Both Turners jumped like guilty schoolmates. He held out his hands in supplication. “For God’s sake, how long do you intend to keep stringing me along?”

Elizabeth bit her lip. Will drew in a deep breath. They both turned to him.

She said, “Very well, then,” while he strode purposefully in James’ direction.

And kept coming, nearer and nearer. James had barely enough time to stutter a syllable of inquiry before Will’s strong hands were at his waist and Will’s mouth was on his own.

He had thought of kissing Will before. He dared anyone to earn a wide, bright grin from the often somber blacksmith and _not_ think of kissing him. Perhaps that was why he did not immediately pull away, why his lips parted easily to the press of Will’s tongue, why he put a hand to Will’s cheek and kissed him back with such fervor. He felt the rough scrape of shaven skin against his fingertips, the flex of muscles on the arms encircling him, tasted wine on warm breath, and heard a small gasp. Elizabeth –

James stumbled back, breaking from Will’s hold and touching a hand to his lips. He looked to Elizabeth with shame and horror, but to his great astonishment her hazel eyes were sparkling.

“Oh!” she said in a low voice, clasping her hands together. “ _Please_ do that again.”

Will laughed shakily, regarding James with such fondness he lost his breath and his knees, all at once, and sat back on the sofa with an undignified _oof_. Will’s hand landed on the back of his neck and Elizabeth sank down beside him, but he couldn’t see either of them because he’d put his head between his rubbery knees.

“Oh dear, we shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that – I _told you_ , Beth –”

“Will Turner, we both agreed there was no other way to do it, so don’t turn tail on me now.” She groped for James’ limp hand and squeezed it. “We _are_ sorry for startling you, James, but – look at me, won’t you?”

He allowed her to raise his head, her cool palm cupping his chin, but he could only stare at her and rasp out, “Why – what exactly do you think you are doing?”

“Asking for you,” said Will simply, kneeling on James’ other side to better meet his eyes.

Elizabeth tugged at a chain around her neck, drawing from her bodice the garnet engagement ring he had given her – a lifetime ago, a moment ago; for when she looked at him like that he knew he would have done it all over again.

“Honor this,” she said, cradling the ring in her hand, “and so shall I – so shall we.”

“There’s no appropriate ceremony, I’m afraid,” Will added ruefully. He laid his fingers over James’ and Elizabeth’s clasped hands. “But neither is there a need for public vows, not really.”

James closed his eyes, slumping against the back of the sofa. His hat was plucked off his head while long fingers tapped the buttons of his waistcoat. It was cruel, so terribly cruel of them to taunt him so. This could not be anything but a farce.

“How am I to believe you?” he wanted to know, swallowing to ease the dryness of his throat.

Elizabeth’s merry laughter sounded just below his ear as she kissed his jaw. “Why, James, don’t you trust me?”

“No,” he replied frankly, keeping his eyes closed. If he could not see who was slowly divesting him of his clothing, it couldn’t be happening.

“But you trust me, don’t you?” Will’s voice was elevated; he must be leaning down over them, perhaps propping his chin on Elizabeth’s golden head as she made her way up with tiny, busy kisses.

“Only to do the bravest and most foolish thing available at the time,” James muttered, turning his head to escape Elizabeth’s advances, trying once more to stave off what seemed to be an impossible inevitability.

Will chuckled, brushing against him as he dropped to the floor again. James remembered how nimble, how very flexible he was from all those hours of fencing practice - perhaps not the safest route through memories at the moment...

“At least I am consistent.”

James might have argued the validity of this point, except that Elizabeth was stubborn as a bull and insisted at that moment on kissing him every bit as thoroughly as her husband had – perhaps even more so, for she’d been later to stake her claim.

James focused his whole attention on her lush, welcoming mouth in an attempt to distract himself from the knowledge that his breeches were being undone. Even with Will’s hand on his hardening prick, he remained motionless between them.

But when the heat of Will’s breath sent flames of desire burning through his blood, he broke the kiss, jaw dropping as he looked down at Will’s head between his thighs, Elizabeth’s pale fingers a striking contrast nestled in the dark curls. Never in his wildest, most shameful dreams –

“Nothing to fear,” said Elizabeth heartily, apparently interpreting his shock as apprehension regarding her husband’s qualifications for the job. “I’ve schooled him as best I can manage.”

“You seem to have –” James shuddered under the long, confident strokes Will’s tongue was sweeping over him. “– managed very well indeed.”

A mumble might have been Will’s acknowledgment of his bride’s tutorial skills, but James was too occupied by the pulsing heat it sent from tip to root to make out what he had actually said. His eyes rolled up to Elizabeth, who smiled in a self-satisfied manner – smirked, one might even say – and went back to stealing what little breath was left in his lungs.

He could put a stop to this, even now. A commander calm in battle should be able to withstand the onslaught of a mere pair of young wastrels.

But Will abandoned his refined licks and began to suck, gingerly at first and then with evident bravado. Elizabeth pulled his wig off and held his head in her hands, her kisses gentle, fierce, gentle again. And James pledged his troth in the cry muffled behind her ear, in the release Will demanded and accepted with equal fortitude.

The tenderness with which they wrapped him in their arms as he came down from a great height astonished him as much as anything he had heard that night. Will eased up behind him, barely fitting onto the furniture. It left James no doubt as to his further intentions, but for the moment Will was content to embrace him, chest against his back and chin resting on his shoulder. Elizabeth tucked her legs under her skirt, curling up with her head on his thigh. Will's hand joined James' in stroking her hair. She sighed with satisfaction, then suddenly twisted, going for his waistcoat pocket. James winced when she pulled out the ring.

"This," said Elizabeth severely, brandishing it in front of his nose, "is indicative of very bad taste, James. I've half a mind to chuck you out on sheer principle."

"Yes, about that -"

Will snickered and nipped him gently on the ear. "Would you like us to explain to Miss Tilley the reason why you will have to withdraw your suit?"

The thought of the two of them in a room together with another woman he must choose had always filled him with dread. The forced politeness, the suppressed longing, the inescapable comparisons and regrets...

Now, however, he pictured the scene and could not see the pale substitute for the shine of Elizabeth and Will. There were still questions he wanted to ask, things they needed to discuss, but for the present he was content with the hard-won faith that he belonged here.

On the other hand, Will's faintly nudging hips and Elizabeth's wandering fingers were convincing him that perhaps he belonged more properly in the bedchamber. So he scolded until they let him up, and then he ushered them ahead on the stairs. Elizabeth paused halfway up to press Will against the banister, and James smiled to himself. No better view in all the Caribbean.


End file.
